Rivers, Roads & Rails is a matching game similar to dominoes

Dominoes

Dominoes generally refers to the collective gaming pieces making up a domino set or to the subcategory of tile games played with domino pieces. In the area of mathematical tilings and polyominoes, the word domino often refers to any rectangle formed from joining two congruent squares edge to edge...

, but with 140 square tiles and in some respects similar to Bendomino

Bendomino

Bendomino is a tabletop strategy game similar to dominoes, created by Thierry Denoual and published by Blue Orange Games in 2007. It is a set of double-6 dominoes with a 120-degree curve. The main difference from dominoes is the curved shape of the pieces, which introduces a new level of strategy...

. The game was created by Ken Garland and Associates

Ken Garland

Ken Garland is notable as a British graphic designer, author and game designer. Garland established Ken Garland Associates in 1962.Garland studied design at London's Central School of Arts and Crafts in the early 1950s...

 and first published in 1969. Since 1970 it has been produced by Ravensburger

Ravensburger

Ravensburger Spieleverlag GmbH is a German game company. It is a leader in the European puzzle market.-History:The company was founded by Otto Robert Maier with seat in Ravensburg, a town in Upper Swabia in southern Germany. He began publishing in 1883 with his first author contract...

, first in an abstract form, and since 1984 under the current theme with artwork by Josef Loflath. It has also been known under the names Connect and Contact.

Setup

A large area like a tabletop or the floor is used. The tiles are turned face down and all players randomly draw ten tiles and place them face up in front of them. The youngest player is the first player to start. The starting player randomly chooses a face-down tile, and turns it face up in the center of the play area.

Playing

Beginning with the starting player, each player on their turn draws a face-down tile (while there are ones remaining). Each tile has at least one of the river, road or rail on it. The player chooses one of his or her tiles and places it so that it matches up with river, road and/or rail on the tiles that have already been played. If that player cannot play a tile, then they must pass. Play then proceeds to the next player (rules don't specify which direction) until all of the tiles of one player have been played, or no one can play a tile.

Winning

The winner is the person who first plays all of their tiles. If no more tiles can be played, then the winner is the person with the fewest tiles remaining.

External links

• Editorial review for Rivers, Roads & Rails at FunagainGames